By Dmitry Dobrodeyev
THE SPRING OF OBLIVION
- Good bye, my little girl! If I am not back, remember that your dad loved his motherland very much, our great Soviet Union!
The commissar pressed his little daughter to his breast. Vilena (the name of the girl originates from V.I. Lenin. - A.A.O) has remembered the image of her father, his strong arms, his snow-white smile and the specific smell of the shoulder belt`s leather for life. It was in 1927. The young graduator from the Red-Bannered Military Academy went to South Turkmenistan to war against basmatchs (Muslim anti-Bolshevik fighters in Central Asia during 1917-37). He packed his little suitcase, took the bundle of books on political knowledge, and arrived at Kushka. It was there where he was buried in the hot sands. To be exact, it was this way.
Once he was appointed a leader of the special detachment after they had been informed by the pitted Selim, their secret agent, that the arms smuggling caravan had come from Merv. They attacked it. The exchange of shots lasted not long. The caravan was scattered.
Commissar Rotchenko haunted the ginger-haired one-eyed basmatch until the very sunset. He occured to be in an unknown place. Everything was there as in reality. Sand dunes, whistle of the wind. A monitor lizard ran under the hooves of the fast horse. A bird warbled and ceased. Rotchenko mused over the savagery of the elements and the loneliness of his run in that damn terrible desert of Turkmenistan. He thought that wogs were right when they said that in such places a person had got an opportunity of the direct talk with Allah!
A sudden shot slashed his earlap. The basmatch was hiding behind the next dune. He rode away, but Rotchenko prevented his attempt of escape. He shot him down at full tilt.
The basmatch was sinewy and swift. It was not very easy to tie him up and place him across the saddle.
The basmatch prayed,
-Do not kill me, I shall reveal a secret!
-Go on! Do talk!
-Mista have children?
-It`s none of your business!
-If you bathe your daughter in the Black Spring, she`ll ever give birth to a strong man.
-That is no news!
-You to know a lot, learn a secret of the eternal youth, .. just drink some water from the Black Spring.
The commissar thought a little.
-Where have you said is that miracle?
-Ease up a little on a rope, I gonna tell.
They went farther. The basmatch rode in front with his hands tied up. The political leader deputy Rotchenko followed him while keeping his eyes on him. They covered about ten miles, and soon before their view there was a weathered rock with a hardly perceptible cave. They dismounted and entered the cave. The icy spring originated from the crack in the rock. It babbled invitingly under the vault of the cave.
After the first gulp Rotchenko realized that he no longer was a commissar.
After the second gulp he realized he was nobody.
After the third gulp he pronounced:
-Take me with you, Anwar!
They reached Jalalabad in Afganistan together, the one-eyed basmatch Anwar and blue-eyed basmatch Nureddin that means `God`s Light`. He was flooded with God`s Light after three gulps of the life-giving water. MDs would say there was a case of the retrograde amnesia. Rotchenko could not remember he had been a Commissar in the past. To put it simply, he coud not remember a thing from his past.
Everything was simple later. It was daybreak. He heard a cockcrow`s cock-a-doodle-doo! He was lying in the cool bed scratching and grasping the crumple bedsheets. Suddenly his hand felt a smooth female body. `Vera?`- he was about to ask by force of habit.
-My name is Fayrouz, the Persian girl said. Then the second maiden came in, loosened her wide trousers, and he felt himself in time immemorial.
Then he went outdoors. The humpbacked oldman served him with some tea with leaves of coca in it. He sat down with his legs crossed and drank it with feeling of a great self-importance.
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At noon muezzin sang, he fell down on the little carpet and began to pray. At night the other Faithful came in, kissed his hands one by one, said,
-Mirza Nureddin, giaours know no rest, it`s time to take the desert.
A month later there was a skirmish near the aul of Kyr-Kul`. The insurgents were defeated. The only survived prisoners of war were the one-eyed basmatch and richly dressed young horseman, a spitting image of Rotchenko. Much as they bashed to bash him up, nothing came out of his mouth.
The verdict was a death penalty for the traitor.
-Ma-a-a-rch to the wa-a-a-a-ll!!! You fucking louse!
That was an order of the commander`s new political deputy Tchudar`.
Rotchenko rested against the wall, closed his eyes and began to recite the First Sura of the Alcoran.
THE END
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